


Cockatrice [basilisk kiss]

by taichara



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naaza has decided his creation requires a certain ... refinement.  Takes place at an unspecified moment in Yoroiden continuity after Suiko no Shin's combat with Doku Suiko.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cockatrice [basilisk kiss]

It had taken time, he thought, time and patience and pain.  
But now, a purpose was found for a flawed creation ...

Concealed down deep in the shadowy palace, Naaza reflected as he glided slowly towards the shrouded chamber, was as if one were enveloped in the void. Or a cold dead womb.

The grotto he sought could be gaping, enormous, for all the shivering darkness told;  
the only glimmer of light the pale bonefire atop twisted braziers of dark jade and blackened horn.  
All else was the scent of aloeswood and old blood, the soft drip of water and the cool, comforting mists that hid all away in this lifeless, deathless place.

Armor banished, cloaked in emerald pale as milk and sabled violet dark as venom, the general of venoms set aside the silken bundle at the feet of a still, waiting form and inspected the displeasing figure before his eyes with long, pitiless fingers.

Arrayed on a tableau of black burnished clay and trimmed reeds, the shattered cinnabar of his false Suiko screamed silently its pain and corruption, bonefire eyes dimmed and dead;  
or, rather, so did the spirits bound to its fractured carapace, leaking toxic pearly weeping and the plasm of dead spirits to soak into the dull jet framework of its armor.

No, he mused, a puppet had not been enough.  
Something more precious was required.

Soft-voiced murmurs followed deft hands as the demon of serpents worked new craft upon the caustic vermilion armor in shimmering toxic delicacy; and the mists, shivering with sundered stolen souls, flowed through the false yoroi's hollow fractures and coiled within, seething and slowly pulsing as a fluttering new heart would beat.

Naaza paused in the calling of the shades then, stepped around to stand before the caustic crimson-amber of the armored doll, silks whispering like pearly scales sliding past scales; reached out a long-fingered hand, and tilted the empty-eyed helm slowly upwards.

He purred a soft hiss of command, words of binding devotion and a poisoned heart;  
and leaned in then, and kissed the lifeless mask.

As the dewdrop shimmering mist of venom trailed down the hollow of the armor's empty throat, the serpent-general drew away again and breathed a silky shadowed mist into the hollow creature's vacant eyes, listening for the deathsong surge of gathering power deep within himself.

The burning-ocean armor began to shiver, as if with trembling heartbeat or the fragility of an egg of wisp-thin jade; and he glided a few paces deeper into the mists, eyes bright with longing, to watch the transmutation within the hollow shell.

Almost. Almost perfect, now.

He licked the droplets of milky venom and cinnabar taint from his mouth, disregarded the sting of the bleeding pearl-scar between his brows;  
and softly hissing his song of binding, stooped sinuously to grasp the bundle of pale uncolored silk.

The milky fabric fell away from a serpent's sword hilted in cinnabar and lacquer, death-keen blade shimmering still with venom and with blood.

Hard-won blood, that, and soon to serve a sweet and deathless purpose ...

A small sacrifice, the blade; the great armor would birth another soon enough.  
More important, now, was the sweet scarlet promise that it carried.

Coiling himself into a fluid, patient stance, his hissing chant now a dark parody of mother's lullaby, he drew back the blade as if aiming a lance --

and in one smooth movement of muscle and shimmering silk, drove it through the shivering cinnabar breast of the burning false-armor.

The blade gleamed with blood-emerald power, dissolved to nothingness in a shower of gleaming pearly poison that threw blind milky droplets through the grotto's concealing mists.  And the rich sweet scarlet that stained its edge rippled, frothed, and sank into the burning cinnabar as if into desert sands.

The shattered armor screamed.

Naaza stood, still as patience and murmuring the song of his craft, as the slick caustic shell of cinnabar flaked and cracked away, dissolving into burning crimson mist and motes of clinging pearl-shadow fluid.

The remnants of the false shell crumpled to its knees, keening, and fell apart into chalky crimson fragments like the rotted petals of of a scarlet lotus, revealing the shimmering pearl it harbored inside.

Naaza glided to the shivering pale form, pearly fluid and sable venom of its deadly birth still slick on milky flesh and beading in cinnamon locks that brushed the slender neck.

He smiled a serpent's smile, then, and tilted the new-born's chin up slowly to meet its obedient cinnabar gaze; gave the shivering figure a venomed kiss between its brows, then dropped his hand, only to rest it in the damp locks of its hair.

Now this was the perfect creation ...


End file.
